Sunday, 5 September 2010

Men of War Review (PC)

Introduction

Men of War is a Real Time strategy game which takes place during the events of World War 2. You can play as Germany, Russia, or the Allies (Britain and USA). It is different than other RTS games in that you can choose any individual unit and take complete control of them from a 3rd person perspective. Features a campaign mode and multiplayer mode and high levels of historical detail are featured throughout the game in terms of the tanks and military units including the physical appearance, and also their strengths and weaknesses in terms of unit speed, turret rotation speed, range, fuel, armour, and even locations of strong or week armour on a tank.

artillery and supporting troops

Gameplay

The game is implements a full 3D engine allowing zoom, tilt or rotation of the camera.

There is fun physics in the game like exploding dynamite next to a troop send them fly through the air 100 feet. Bullet can be deflected depending on the angle of the surface being hit, or the angle the bullet is hitting the surface. It is possible for bullets to go clean through a tank destroying it and destroying the tank behind it. If you attack a tank with a Molotov or a flame thrower the tank engine might catch on fire leading to a destroyed engine. Tracks on a tank can break stopping the tank from moving but leaving a turret fully functional. Turrets on tank can be destroyed leaving the tank mobile, and still able to shoot, but unable to rotate the turret. If you damage wheels on artillery guns the gun become slower to rotate to aim on a target.

Each unit in the game has its own inventory and can carry pretty much carry anything it is physically large enough to be carried. It is your responsibility to make sure units inventory have all the items they might need. Items you can carry a range the things you would expect like health kit, to more unusual items like an enemy officers cap, or welding machine.

In game interface is good enough, and has a tool bar which you can customise to put the items you use the most. I put a landmine button and a pick up and drop button, its useful for looting items from enemies or getting rids of items you don’t need.

Some missions have a large number of objectives that need to be completed and there is an objectives screen for seeing the objective and if they are complete.

Campaign

Campaign mode is split into 9 Soviet missions, 6 German missions, 5 Allied missions, and some bonus missions. Missions can take anything from 30 minutes to a few hours to complete.

Voice acting in the game is amateur to say the least. You can turn it off in options, or leave it on if you find it amusing.

Each of the campaigns follows the events through the war as they happened through the eyes of an individual. German and Allied campaigns cover the war in Africa, and Soviet campaigns cover the battles on the eastern front. Cut scenes are used during and between missions to tell the story, and tell the story well and are worth watching.

There are stealth mission in the game which range from frustrating to excellent, and mean you don’t have to play massive tank battle after massive tank battle.

One awesome mission is a level that plays in the style of on the rail shooters Time crisis or Virtua Cop as you race through German enemy outposts shooting everything in site with a machine gun of rocket launcher. You don’t control the direction or speed of the jeep you are travelling in, just the shooting and its fun. Also the cut scene for this features some heavy metal music which is in no way accurate to the 1940's, but I don’t mind because it sounds awesome.

Allied Us support tanks

Multiplayer

Multiplayer in Men of War is fun if only for a chance to try all the different units out. The games need good team work as well as really good reactions to respond to enemy moves. For a new comer it is quite unforgiving and it is recommended to join a large team game, so you can learn from team mates

One of the problems of multiplayer is stale mates where both teams set up a line of artillery. These matches happen a lot and are not nearly as much fun as when one team has a decisive victory.

In multiplayer you can play as Japan, but not in single player.

Conclusion

I enjoyed both the campaign and multiplayer modes of Men of war a lot. It is a worthwhile game if only for learning about some of the lesser known battles of WW2. If you care about the pros and cons of different tanks and strategies for attacking then this is a game for you.

The game is great fun, and its very satisfying to destroy a massive heavy tank with a single unit anti tank grenade or a rocket launcher. Also Ripping through a convoy of light/medium tanks with a flack truck is satisfying too.